Here's why you can take it:

1. Not painfully hard.
2. Manageable workload.
3. Not a strict class.

Here's why you can take it, but you'll not like it:

1. $50 MANDATORY (BUT EXTREMELY POOR) TEXTBOOK - Kudu, the website for us to do all the homework and participation questions, is the most unorganized online textbook ever (you can easily find free textbooks 10x better than this) and it's very frustrating to use (no chapters, no concept highlights, no equations).

2. SLOW LECTURES WITH NO RECORDINGS - Professor Treu is a nice person, but don't expect too much from his lectures. He's often lecturing aimlessly with no real information given, while the slides are always not helpful at all and the topics are all over the place.

3. UNPLEASANT VIBE - For a class covering fantastic topics, this one is not inspiring at all: ambiguous, poorly structured, and often just boring. Astronomy should be some of the most fantastic topics to ever be made into a class, but this one skipped most - if not all - of its charm.

Although Professor Treu is extremely passionate about Astronomy, the way he teaches the class is not exactly the easiest to understand. I spent a majority of the quarter relying on what we discussed in Lab and Quizlet to pull me through the tests. Speaking of the tests, I felt as though a lot of the tests were not on things we directly covered in class or in the assigned readings attached to the homework. If you are thinking of taking this professor know that he is funny and passionate but a majority of the learning you do will be on your own and not in the lecture. The one big bonus was that lectures weren't required, they were recorded and the notes were posted and honestly, sometimes the information is easier to understand that way.

To review Professor Treu himself: Great guy! He was very motivated to help students learn. At times it felt like his lectures were often too dense for an introductory course, and it felt as though he was rushing/unprepared to be able to cover all of the relevant information for the class. He would frequently skip over slides or gloss over convoluted concepts as if they did not need to be explained thoroughly. He was incredibly passionate about teaching and seemed invested in making sure that we were not only understanding but enjoying the material; I am not at all saying he is a bad lecturer. I think he just struggled to manage the sheer volume of the material being presented, and struggled to convey the basic fundamentals of certain physical and astronomical concepts that incoming non-astronomy majors might not already know. He's very smart, maybe too smart to teach intro. I very much like the class though. Do all of the work and you should be fine; he curves the tests to save everyone's grade. Solid 7.5/10

Prof. Treu is actually a very sweet and nice person. However, I did not have a good experience in the class. He moves too quickly through his lectures, often ending class early. His exams weren't super difficult, but they were a lot more challenging than I expected for a GE. His exams were very math heavy, so I'd reccomend studying the formulas mostly. I'd also reccomend going to lecture even if it isn't the most interesting, because he will go over problems using the formulas in the same way they would appear in exams. The slides were also pretty unclear to me. The kudu textbooks and homework had no relevance to the exams. It felt as if the labs were also not super relevant.

This class made me rethink the reviews on Bruinwalk. The professor did not effectivly lecture about the topics clearly resulting in many of the students to not pass the midterms. We had a substitute professor one day and he lectured the topic of "stars" very clearly and much better than the current professor. Furthermore, the labs did not transition to our lecture well. The labs take a long time to do and it has a lot of calculation and physics heavily involve. There are other easy science GEs that can be fulfilled

This class was easy enough but, I had more trouble with the tests than understanding the information... if that makes sense. Lectures were easy enough to understand and discussions were very helpful but when it came to the exams I felt they were harder and included things we didn't learn directly in class.

Super sweet guy. I honestly don't recommend going to all the lectures because the slides are posted online and he doesn't cover a lot on the tests. GO TO DISCUSSION! It's optional but will basically teach you everything you need for the tests. An easy GE

writing this during my discussion class right now with Gibbs because with all due respect this is the worst GE I've taken at UCLA. the lecture slides' audio has TONS of background noise that drown out the professor's voice, but even if audio were clear the complex concepts of this class are glossed over and understated. The exam asked like 5 vague, broad questions that we needed to answer in about 200 words, and when it was graded on gradescope we got points off for things like "did not say that Planet X did Y". It was ridiculous. Although I've tried to ask questions to get deeper understanding, the TA does not know how to answer adequately most of the time. There ARE EASIER GEs that you should take. AVOID this one. Too much work than it is worth. You won't learn much at all.

This class was super fun. I really recommend taking this class with Treu. Sometimes I feel like profs here don't really like having to teach classes. However, Treu was always so enthusiastic about astronomy. You could tell that he was a prof who really liked teaching and working with students. As for the class, the grading scheme was 20% Labs, 20% homework on kudu (the online textbook), 20% for midterm 1, 20% for midterm 2, and 20% for the final. Labs were fairly straightforward. Ask for help from your TA and work with your group mates and you should get close to 100% on the labs. Homework was super easy too. All of the tests were pretty difficult. HOWEVER, the class was curved to compensate for the tricky tests. First of all, the grading scale was generous. 95% is an A+, 90% is an A, 85% is an A- etc. You could also earn up to 5% extra credit by participating on campuswire. Just answer student questions and you'll get the extra credit. Overall, the course was extremely interesting. His slides had a lot of pictures and it was cool to see some of the awesome celestial phenomena. If you have an interest in astronomy, I highly recommend taking this class. Treu was awesome, and it's a fairly easy GE.

This class if very fun if you enjoy astronomy. If you don't, don't take this class as an easy A unless you're good at math/physics. Overall I really liked Treu and he way really helpful. Tests are pretty tough but he ends up giving extra credit and he rounds up your grade, so if you get an 85% in the class, you can get an A if you do the 5% extra credit.